'We need to stop': Inside the world's first diplomatic alliance to keep oil and gas in the ground


The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance is expected to formally launch at U.N.-brokered climate talks in early November, a summit known as COP26.

Until then, Costa Rica and Demark are seeking to persuade as many countries and jurisdictions as possible to join them in bringing an end to oil and gas production.

Burning fossil fuels, such as oil and gas, is the chief driver of the climate crisis, and yet the world's fossil fuel dependency is expected to get even worse in the coming decades.

© Provided by CNBC Sheep on a road in view of mobile offshore drilling units in the Port of Cromarty Firth in Cromarty, U.K., on Tuesday, June 23, 2020.

Sam Meredith 1 hour ago

LONDON — Costa Rica and Demark are spearheading efforts to build the world's first diplomatic alliance to manage the decline of oil and gas production.

The co-leaders of the initiative, known as the "Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance," are seeking to establish a deadline for the end of oil and gas production that would get countries aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement. This legally binding treaty aims to limit global heating to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — and preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Meeting the conditions of the agreement is widely recognized as critically important to avoid an irreversible climate crisis.

The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance is expected to formally launch at U.N.-brokered climate talks in early November, a summit known as COP26.

Until then, Costa Rica and Demark are seeking to persuade as many countries and jurisdictions as possible to join them in bringing an end to oil and gas production.

It comes at a time when policymakers are under intense pressure to meet the demands of the climate emergency. Burning fossil fuels, such as oil and gas, is the chief driver of the climate crisis, and yet the world's fossil fuel dependency is expected to get even worse in the coming decades.

Speaking on Thursday during an online webinar hosted by the International Renewable Energy Agency, Dan Jorgensen, minister for climate, energy and utilities for Denmark, said: "The science is clear. We cannot negotiate with nature."

"There is no scenario in which we burn all the oil and gas that we can find and in which we stay below 2 degrees — and definitely not 1.5. It is just not possible, so we need to stop."

Denmark pledged in December last year to end all future licensing rounds on oil and gas exploration in the North Sea and put a stop date of 2050 on oil and gas production. At that time, the relatively small European country was the largest oil producer in the European Union.

"On one hand, if you look at it, it is a huge thing to ask a country," Jorgensen said, acknowledging the challenge of trying to persuade others to sign up to the alliance.

"What you are saying, like one of my political opponents did when I proposed this in Denmark, is: 'So, basically you want us to say no to free money? You want us to stop pumping money out of the ground so that others can do it instead of us?'"

"And I had to say: Well, yes," Jorgensen continued. "But it is for a good reason."

Climate hypocrisy

Andrea Meza, environment and energy minister for Costa Rica, said on Thursday that some opposition political parties were pushing the country's government to consider using oil and gas revenues to pay for their energy transition. "We are very clear that this is not the right pathway."

Costa Rica, a Central American country of around 5 million people, has never extracted oil. What's more, it is currently considering a bill to permanently ban fossil fuel exploration to ensure that no future government does so.

When asked during the same webinar why other countries would consider joining their initiative, Meza said that platforms such as the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance need to exist to show others that it is possible.

"It is just one planet," Meza said. "This is not about doing things in the right way in the internal part of our countries and selling … all of the old technologies outside of our borders. This is not fair."

© Provided by CNBC U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (C), Costa Rica's First Lady Claudia Dobles (L) and Costa Rican Minister of Environment and Energy Andrea Meza (R) are seen during the launch of the National Land Use, Land Cover, and Ecosystems Monitoring System (SIMOCUTE) in San Jose, on June 2, 2021.

Research published in the scientific journal Nature on Sept. 9 found that the vast majority of the world's known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground to have some hope of preventing the worst effects of climate change.

Separately, analysis published by Carbon Action Tracker on Wednesday, showed that none of the world's major economies are currently on track to contain global heating to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

It follows a bombshell report from the influential, yet typically conservative, International Energy Agency earlier this year. The IEA concluded that there could be no new oil, gas or coal development if the world was to reach net zero fossil fuel emissions by 2050

.

© Provided by CNBC Environmental activists and Native Americans march to the construction site for the Line 3 oil pipeline near Palisade, Minnesota on January 9, 2021. Line 3 is an oil sands pipeline which runs from Hardisty, Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin in the United States.

Denmark's Jorgensen said it would be "impolite" to name specific countries, but described it as a "paradox" that many governments were touting their commitment to net zero by 2050 while also quietly planning to extract oil and gas to sell to others. These countries include the U.S., Canada, Norway and the U.K., among others.

"You are not going to burn it yourself and you think others shouldn't either, but you will make money selling oil to other countries? It doesn't make sense," he added.

Jorgensen said he did not want to dismiss the fact that signing up to the yet-to-be-revealed pledges of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance would come with difficult economic choices, particularly those heavily reliant on oil and gas. "But, it is the tough questions that we need to ask ourselves."

"Can we live with a future where we don't do this? I don't think that we can."
'Inferior technologies'

Speaking alongside Denmark's Jorgensen and Costa Rica's Meza on Thursday, former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres addressed the urgent need for governments to dramatically scale down fossil fuel use. She cited air pollution, caused mostly by the burning of fossil fuels, which kills an estimated 7 million people worldwide every year.

Figueres also stressed that the economic imperatives for moving beyond oil and gas were compelling. "They are simply inferior technologies by now. They weren't inferior last century but, in this century, given the rise of all the other alternatives that we have, they have become inferior technologies."

© Provided by CNBC Pipes for the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline are stacked at Houstrup Strand, near Noerre Nebel, Jutland, Denmark, on February 23, 2021. The Baltic Pipe gas pipeline, which is to come ashore at Esbjerg, on the west coast of the Jutland peninsula, will transport ten billion cubic meters of gas every year from the Norwegian gas fields in the North Sea through Denmark and to Poland.

An increasing number of cities banning the use of fossil fuel burning vehicles was likely to usher in "the demise of oil," Figueres said. The end of gas production may take longer given that it is recognized as a transition fuel, she said, but still not more than 20 to 30 years as there are alternative fuels coming on the market, such as hydrogen and ammonia, "that will be able to compete favorably."

In summary, Figueres said the economic case, "pounding" litigation in Europe and elsewhere and a social license for these fuels that has been "completely lost," showed that there is no more space for oil and gas production.

INSIGHT FROM THE RIGHT
John Ivison: Singh pitch to hold the balance of power

BURNABY, B.C. — As political parties across the country girded for the last battle of the 2021 federal election, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh abandoned the pretense that he might become prime minister tomorrow.

© Provided by National Post NDP leader Jagmeet Singh delivers his morning announcement in Saskatoon, Sask., on Friday.

Instead, there was a subtle shift in his rhetoric, appealing to people who want the NDP to be a constructive influence on a minority Liberal government — the most likely outcome according to an aggregation of opinion polls.

“If you want somebody who’s going to fight, that’s what we’ll do. We’re not in Parliament looking to make it not work.

I’m looking to make government work for you. That’s our goal,” he said at a roadside rally on a patch of wasteland in the rain.

THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN AND SHOULD ALWAYS BE THE MESSAGE OF NDP CAMPAIGNS FEDERALLY AND PROVINCIALLY!!!

It says something about Singh that he is upbeat in all weathers, even when he is asked whether he plans to resign if he loses seats. He said he is confident of success – though he did not define what would constitute an NDP win. “I’m proud of the campaign we ran,” he said. “I like to think about how much people have been inspired because they feel like someone’s on their side.”

John Ivison: Singh side-steps questions about post-election scenarios

John Ivison: Jagmeet Singh's crafted play on 'selfish' Trudeau may serve NDP well in election

Singh pointed to the NDP’s role in increasing the wage subsidy from 10 per cent coverage to 75 per cent during the height of the pandemic. “We saved a lot of jobs,” he said.

The final day of the campaign sees the NDP visit ridings held by its opponents, a recurring theme of the past few days. The first event of seven was in Burnaby North-Seymour, currently held by Liberal, Terry Beech. If NDP candidate, Jim Hanson, wins, it will suggest the New Democrats are on course to double their seat count from 24. More likely, Singh will add a handful of ridings across the country.

There remains a brand problem for the New Democrats over their cavalier disregard for generating growth and creating jobs. This is a party that has a fetish for small businesses and an animus toward big businesses. But at some point, successful small businesses turn into big businesses and become deplorable in New Democrat eyes.

The NDP will have to be content to be a powerbroker until it cares more about creating wealth and less about squeezing Canada’s 47 billionaires.

NDP HAVE A POLICY OF PROMOTING WORKER PRODUCER COOPS AS WELL AS EMPLOYEE OWNED COMPANIES LIKE INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING FIRM STANTEC (WHICH PUTS LIE TO IVESON'S SUGGESTION THE NDP OPPOSES SMALL COMPANIES GROWING INTO LARGER ONES)

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward Singh makes a campaign stop in Cranbrook, B.C., on Saturday. A cavalier disregard for generating growth and creating jobs continues to hamstring the New Democrats.

It is ironic that the most recent polls suggest Justin Trudeau might yet win his coveted majority. He is equally prone to the criticism that he enjoys spending other people’s money more than generating more of it.

But the Liberal brand, built by prime minister’s with a much more balanced perspective, seems to have survived the distinct lack of enthusiasm for the current leader. So much of what he announced in two elections remains unfinished. The Toronto Star spoke for legions of voters when it endorsed Trudeau “very reluctantly”.

Ontario, in particular, remains immune to Erin O’Toole’s attempts to re-brand his Conservative Party as one more unabashedly centre-right. At the same time, that moderation appears to have upset the party’s angriest supporters, who have turned to Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party.

The Conservative Party’s superior get-out-the-vote effort may make a mockery of the pollsters. 338 Canada, which analyses polls and makes electoral projections, gave the Liberals a 68 per cent chance of winning the most seats and the Conservatives a 31 per cent chance. As others have pointed out, Donald Trump was given just a 29 per cent chance of winning in 2016.

But the polls probably have to be off by more than 5 per cent to allow the Conservatives to win the seat count. A big, embarrassing miss remains possible but that’s not the way to bet.

jivison@postmedia.com

Health and education workers support idea of 'bubble zones' after anti-vaccine protests at schools, hospitals

ARREST AND QUANTINE THEM

SHOULD HAVE ALREADY DONE THAT

Akshay Kulkarni 

© Gian Paolo Mendoza/CBC Thousands of people protesting against vaccination passports and the COVID-19 vaccine gathered near Vancouver General Hospital on Cambie Street on Sept. 1. Representatives of healthcare workers and school principals have called for…

After anti-vaccine protests outside hospitals and schools in B.C. this month, representatives of hospital workers and school principals are asking for protest exclusion zones to be put in place around key institutions.

Thousands protested B.C.'s vaccine card rules outside hospitals earlier this month, and some healthcare workers were allegedly assaulted. On Friday, schools in and around Salmon Arm, B.C., were put into temporary lockdown after protestors entered them, and are set to remain locked beginning Monday.

Federal and provincial leaders have condemned the protests, and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has even promised to make it a criminal offence to block access to buildings that provide healthcare.

Kyla Lee, a lawyer at Acumen Law, said enacting protest zones around hospitals and schools would be entirely legal for governments to do.

"There are always going to be situations of competing rights, and the government's role is to protect people from harm, to protect the most people and respect the most rights as possible," she said.

"Obviously, the access to health care and the access to an education are more important than your right to protest in some spaces."

Lee says, historically, protest exclusion zones — also called bubble zones or buffer zones — were only used when there were legitimate safety concerns, such as when they were used to curtail protests outside abortion clinics in the 1990s

.

© Gian Paolo Mendoza/CBC Lawyer Kyla Lee says 'concerning' behaviour at anti-vaccine protests, including allegations of physical assault and entering schools, might qualify as a legitimate safety concern if governments decide to enact protest exclusion zones.

She says the pattern of behaviour seen at the anti-vaccine protests, including the "significant escalation" seen when protestors entered schools, might qualify as a legitimate safety concern.

"When the protest starts to sort of lose the plot like that, then it becomes less a protest and more into the realm of just unlawful activity where people are trespassing on private property," she said. "The government has a right to prevent that from happening."

Lee says schools and hospitals could both be included in the legislation, and it could be a temporary measure for the duration of the pandemic.

'People felt a little demoralized'

Mike Old, coordinator of policy and planning at the provincial Hospital Employees Union, said the protests outside hospitals at the start of September were disrespectful and demoralized healthcare workers.

"I think it's important that we take proportionate action to make sure that people can continue to access health care freely," he said. "I think that's the balance the government's going to need to strike here."

"Go demonstrate in front of a politician's office or demonstrate somewhere else, but do not impede access to health care by workers or by patients and their families," he added.
'Strikes me as more than just unacceptable'

B.C.'s top leaders have condemned the anti-vaccine protests at hospitals and schools, with Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth calling those who protested at schools on Friday "covidiots" and "whack jobs".

Darren Danyluk, president of the B.C. Principals' & Vice-Principals' Association, said that protestors entering schools was disturbing and beyond unacceptable.

"Absolutely, I would be in favour of a bubble zone," he said. "Schools are public property, but they're not a mall. They're not an area for loitering and that kind of demonstration."

Danyluk says the responsibility of enforcing the zones should not rest exclusively with law enforcement, and governments should also roll out a campaign of education around conduct and behaviour around school sites.

A spokesperson for B.C.'s Ministry of Education said protestors should focus their dissatisfaction with government policies at the government, not at hospitals and schools.

"We are looking at a broader government approach to prevent this from happening again, and we are prepared to take any steps needed to protect students and staff in our schools," the spokesperson said.

'MAYBE' TECH

Hydrogen-powered Toyota reaches petrol horsepower parity

Jamie Klein 1 hour ago


The Rookie Racing-run machine was contesting the penultimate round of the Super Taikyu season at Suzuka, following on from its debut in the Fuji 24 Hours and second appearance in the subsequent Autopolis race of the second-tier Japanese sportscar series.

© Provided by motorsport.com #32 ORC ROOKIE Corolla H2 concept

As was the case at Autopolis, driving duties were shared by SUPER GT regulars Takuto Iguchi and Takamitsu Matsui, Masahiro Sasaki and Toyota president Akio Toyoda, racing under his usual ‘Morizo’ pseudonym.

The quartet completed 90 laps at Suzuka to place 42nd of the 45 finishers, 47 laps down on the winning Aston Martin Vantage GT3, after making 11 pitstops. They recorded an average speed of 103.081km/h, a significant improvement on Autopolis (78.715km/h) but also helped by a highly unusual complete lack of safety car periods or full-course yellows.

Toyota took the three-cylinder turbocharged engine from its GR Yaris road car as the basis for its hydrogen challenger, and ahead of the Suzuka race the marque claimed that it had now reached the same power output of 268bhp (272ps) as the original design.

As well as the power increase, a further reduction in the car’s refuelling time to two minutes (down from three minutes at Autopolis) also enabled an improvement in race performance.

Toyota Gazoo Racing president Koji Sato said: “The hydrogen engine we’re using is the same as the one from the GR Yaris, and at Fuji the power output was reduced by more than 10 percent, but this time the power is now at the same level, including the torque.

“Regarding refuelling, by using a dual system we were able to reduce the time needed from four minutes 30 seconds [at Fuji] to two minutes.”

Rookie Racing team boss Tetsuya Kataoka suggested that the straight-line performance of the hydrogen Toyota was now on a rough par with the cars competing in Super Taikyu’s ST-2 class, which includes a conventional petrol-powered GR Yaris.

However, in qualifying the Corolla could only achieve a best time of 2m27.510s in the hands of Sasaki, six seconds slower than the ST-2 benchmark, leaving the car 35th on the grid ahead of only the slowest ST-5 runners. The pole-sitting McLaren 720S GT3 set a best time of 2m02.482s.

"We’ve entered a new phase,” added Sato. “The drivers’ comments used to be mostly about improving our weak points, but now they have changed to higher-level things like, ‘I want to drive with more downforce through 130R’.”

© Motorsport.com #777 D’station Vantage GT3
Photo by: Kazuya Minakoshi

Taking overall victory at Suzuka was Aston Martin squad D’station Racing, with Satoshi Hoshino, Tomonobu Fujii and Tsubasa Kondo sealing the title in the top ST-X category with one round still remaining in November at Okayama.

It marks a second title for Fujii, who previously won the title in 2016 in a Kondo Racing Nissan, and a first for Hoshino and Kondo.

Additional reporting by Kazuya Minakoshi

Employers say 'ghosting coasting' is a growing problem, but workers have their reasons for quietly walking away from a job

"It is causing some positive change in our industry, employers who would ordinarily just treat people like disposable workers are now treating them like real employees." 

dreuter@insider.com (Dominick Reuter) 

Coleen Piteo, director of marketing at Yours Truly restaurant, puts out a sign for hiring, Thursday, June 3, 2021, in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. AP Photo/Tony Dejak

A phenomenon of "ghosting coasting" is creating new headaches for employers in a tight labor market.

Recruiters and managers say they have been left high and dry by new hires who vanish without explanation.

Meanwhile workers say low wages and poor leadership give them little reason to stick around.

Over a summer marked by rage quits, the Great Resignation, and other high-profile walkouts by overworked and under-appreciated employees, another headache has been quietly brewing.

Where many employees have gone out with a bang this year, a growing number are instead departing without so much as a whimper.

Hiring and retention has become a defining challenge in the current labor market, and the Federal Reserve's most recent summary of economic conditions in the US says a growing trend is giving employers new headaches.

"Retention continued to be a growing problem for firms," the Atlanta Fed said in its September Beige Book entry. "Restauranteurs noted concerns over 'ghosting coasting,' where a new hire works for a few days and moves on to the next restaurant without notice before they are let go due to lack of skills."

Granted, the practice itself is not new, but it does appear to be more widespread than ever before as job openings outpace job seekers, allowing workers to reclaim a measure of the power in a situation that has favored employers for decades.

Recruiters in several industries say they've never seen anything like it.

"We are in such desperate need that I would literally hire anyone that passes the background check," said one food-service recruiter who is currently trying to staff a large food-service contract. Insider agreed to not publish her name or client.

In the past six weeks alone, she told Insider, she scheduled 58 interviews for jobs ranging from $14 to $20 per hour, of which 27 candidates actually showed up. From there she scheduled eight for onboarding after they passed a background check, only to have just five show up for work. Of those five, three have ghosted her leaving only two out of the original 58 she considered.

"We're just understaffed and barely keeping our heads above water and I'm at a complete loss as to how to fix it," she said.

The manager of a spa and fitness center at a California country club said she has had eight new hires ghost her this year so far, even after she specifically talks about ghosting in her onboarding process and asks that workers stay in communication with her, especially if they want to quit.

"They have still done it," she said.

Meanwhile, workers pushed back against the Fed's characterization that ghosting workers were somehow unqualified for the job, saying that misleading job descriptions, low pay, or inadequate training gave them little reason to stick around.

"The main reason employees are ghosting employers is they simply no longer have to put up with horrible working conditions, terrible bosses, low pay, and being overworked," said Matt Murphy, an Oregon restaurant worker who told Insider he has never seen anything like it in 25 years in the industry.

Although Murphy says he hasn't ghosted an employer, he has had to deal with the consequences when someone on his team does, especially if one ghost leads to a ripple effect of quits when colleagues get suddenly overwhelmed by the extra workload.

Even with its challenges, Murphy welcomes the disruption, especially in industries where "at-will" employment contracts give managers the legal right to terminate workers at any time and for any reason - or no reason at all.

"It is causing some positive change in our industry," he said. "Employers who would ordinarily just treat people like disposable workers are now treating them like real employees. It's definitely changed perspectives on things."

LACK OF PROVINCIAL REGULATIONS CAUSE SAFETY CRISIS ON THE ROADS
Over 50% of commercial vehicles recently inspected in Edmonton deemed a risk to others: police

Phil Heidenreich 

© Supplied by EPS The Edmonton Police Service says a recent inspection blitz on commercial vehicles in the city say 52 per cent of the checkups resulted in vehicles being declared out of service.

The Edmonton Police Service says a recent inspection blitz on commercial vehicles in the city resulted in 52 per cent of the vehicles being declared "out of service."

That designation means "the vehicle had a defect that was an immediate risk to the safety of other road users," police said in a news release issued Friday.

"Comparing these statistics to those from the 2019 inspection, the out-of-service rate has increased by 10 per cent, with a similar number of inspections conducted," police said.

Police said 30 per cent of vehicles passed their inspection and 18 per cent of the vehicles required non-urgent attention.

The EPS considers a commercial vehicle to be one that is registered commercially and that is used for the transportation of goods and services.

The vehicle inspections were conducted between Tuesday and Thursday and saw 216 commercial vehicles reviewed at three sites across Edmonton.

According to police, the "most dangerous vehicle" members came across was a semi-truck towing heavy trailers that was found to not have its cargo properly secured and which had mechanical issues relating to its brakes and trailer attachment points. Along with 27 other vehicles, the truck was towed because of its "dangerous condition."

"The bulk of our inspections this year looked at commercial vehicles travelling in and around the city of Edmonton," said Sgt. Dave Beattie, with the EPS' commercial vehicle investigation unit. "It's important to note that despite the one very dangerous semi-truck we found, most of the long-distance highway trucks we see are in safe condition.

"So while the results are not indicative of the transport industry as a whole, it shows that there is work to be done within certain sectors."

READ MORE: Nearly half of vehicles failed commercial inspection in Edmonton

In total, the EPS said the inspections resulted in 601 violations discovered, resulting in 174 tickets issued totalling $56,376. Police also said two charges were laid for suspended driving.

For more information on commercial vehicle inspections in Edmonton, click here.

Watch below: (From September 2017) A recent inspection blitz of commercial vehicles in Edmonton found that over half of the vehicles checked were deemed to be unsafe on the road. Quinn Ohler reports.

Video: Check on commercial vehicles in Edmonton raises concerns

WW3.0

LEFT COMMUNIST RESPONSE TO #AUKUS

Anti-China Military Alliance  between the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom? 

A significant step in the dynamics of generalized war

(press release of September 18, 2021) 

The 'sudden announcement of the creation of a military alliance between the United States, Australia and Great Britain, the Aukud, a kind of Asian and uniquely Anglo-Saxon NATO represents a step, if not a leap, of extreme importance in the march towards generalized imperialist war. The event seemed to us of such importance that we considered it essential to modify the contents of our review REVOLUTION or WAR  Journal of the International Group of the Communist Left (IGCL) 19 at the last moment and to delay its release for a few days. 

Its editorial, written the day before the alliance's public declaration, underlines once again, as we have already done in previous issues, "that the push for generalized imperialist war is exerting increased pressure on each national bourgeoisie, to begin with by the most powerful, to the point that the outlines of a polarization, which is also in the process of becoming, military and ideological, seem to be emerging around the United States, bringing together the so-called democratic imperialist powers and China, behind which the so-called powers would be aligned.

The new military alliance is an expression and an accelerating factor. If in any doubt of the gravity of the decision, just look at the Chinese reaction: "If Australia ventures to provoke China even more openly over this (...), China will punish it mercilessly. . (…) Since Australia has become an anti-Chinese spearhead, the country must prepare for the worst. (Global Times, Chinese newspaper, 9/16/21, emphasis added) 

With the new alliance and the nuclear armament of the Australian navy (among other military decisions), the USoffensive containment, that one even that the United States had waged in the 1930s against Japan, tightens its grip on China even more. The first imperialist power cannot let it take its place at the risk of precipitating its own downfall. But sooner or later, the infernal dialectic of imperialism and like Japan at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Chinese imperialism will be forced to try to loosen the tourniquet by which American imperialism seeks to suffocate it. The gear is relaunched with the Aukud and the endowment of nuclear submarines to Australia can only cause a redoubling of the arms race both in the so-called Indo-Pacific zone and on all continents. 

 

The real scale and significance of the "catastrophic" - catastrophic for the Afghan population - withdrawal of the American army from Kabul is becoming clearer: the American anti-Chinese offensive is the top priority and everyone must choose their side, for or versus. "Europeans want to delay the moment of truth, not to make a choice between the two, " said Thomas Gomart, director of the French Institute of International Relations, or IFRI. The Biden administration, like the Trump administration, is forcing the moment to choose. " (Quoted by the New York Times, 9/17/21) French imperialism, the most pro" European defense ", has just suffered a masterful snub - to the point of recalling its ambassadors in Washington and Canberra - who say so. long both on its own limits and its weight on the world stage and on its inability to convince its “European partners”, Germany, to assert a substantial European imperialist pole. 

Today, in the speed race between the two dynamics and the choice of the historical alternative revolution or war, the march towards war tends to take the advantage. Time is playing against the revolutionary proletariat. To conclude, we reproduce below the position taken by the revolutionary group Emancipation (Nuevo Curso). It defends an internationalist position and shares with us the historical significance of the creation of the Aukud and the danger of the march towards generalized imperialist war. So, since it is possible, speaking with one voice not only to raise high the banner of proletarian internationalism but also to dismantle and shed light on the infernal mechanics of imperialism constitutes for the communist groups and the proletariat a first class response.  

The IGCL, September 18, 2021 

intleftcom@gmail.com,

website : www.igcl.org

TEXT TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH USING GOOGLE TRANSLATE  

EWP

Aukus, the new military alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States: a step towards 3rd world war

(Emancipation) 

he official European media headlines “US, Australia and UK make pact against China” bluntly warns of the danger of the Aukus deal and how it marks the end. entry into a new phase of nuclear proliferation. It is true that this is one 

more step towards war, but if it marks a limit, it is only because the European powers have been excluded by the United States from the secondary arms market. they were counting on until Wednesday. 

However, the organization of Aukus as an “English-speaking bloc” is neither new nor limited to armaments. It is the core of a trading and war bloc. 

Australia: “an alliance for the next generations” 

The most significant aspect of this agreement is that it expresses Australia's final choice of a long-term alliance with the United States against China. The Australian press, following Prime Minister Scott Morrison, speaks of a "deal for life" which is "destined to last for generations." Over the past three years Australia has tried to maintain an autonomous imperialist course - with increasing difficulty. On the one hand, its most basic industrial supply routes were becoming more openly threatened by China, its main customer. On the other hand, attempts to find a regional alternative in terms of routes and markets as part of the American attempts to create their own Indo-Pacific alliance have been thwarted by India's reluctance. 

“The 2018 fuel supply crisis - perhaps a quiet Chinese signal - made it clear to the Australian bourgeoisie that something was wrong. Australia is supplied by Asian refineries (especially China, Singapore and South Korea). Even if it changed suppliers and developed its own refineries, it would need a "safe corridor" from Japan to the Persian Gulf. The problem is that the economic-military dimension of this corridor, QUAD, the Australia-Japan-India-United States partnership, was attractive to Australian capital primarily as a means of rebalancing Chinese exports with others to the United States. India ... But when Trump has raised regional tensions, Modi [Indian Prime Minister, ndt] - fearing to rally against Beijing - quickly made to distance India. Clearly, the opening of free trade negotiations with the European Union (EU) shortly thereafter was in turn intended to compensate for the loss of perspective from the Indian markets. But neither the possible volumes, nor the negotiation times, nor even the transport costs, allow them to be compared. » (Émancipation, Australia y la guerra comercial, 2019) 

It is in this context that the rapprochement - inevitably unsatisfactory - with the EU in 2019 took place. Australia - which then suffered a blockage of its coal exports and of wine to China - is looking to Europe for an agreement to expand its submarine fleet, as it does not want to go into open conflict just yet. Its first candidate supplier was not France. Germany had hoped to build the 12 submarines for the Australian Navy, but it was ultimately Paris that won the contract.  

France, the European Union and the “deal of the century” broken by Aukus The American announcement of the birth of Aukus came this week, just as the EU presented its “Indo-Pacific strategy”. The new strategy is to extend and make permanent the presence of a European navy in maritime conflict zones. A dangerous game of challenge and pressure on Beijing in which France and Germany played a leading role. This “coincidence” did not go unnoticed by Europeans

. 

Yesterday the French government called the Aukus and the resulting cancellation of the submarine deal a "stab in the back" and Mr Borrell, on behalf of the EU, " regretted "that the United States left the Europeans out of the Aukus, implying that relations with Washington would never be the same again. 

But what hurt Paris and Brussels the most was the breach of the contract to extend the Australian submarine fleet. Australia had planned to obtain French technology to set up its own domestic production of submarines. The starting model was the Shortfin Barracuda, the diesel version of the French nuclear submarine of the same name. Australia gained strategic autonomy by purchasing production capacity and not the end product, and reserved the subsequent conversion to nuclear. 

“The amount of the bill initially estimated at 34 billion euros, suffered several budget overruns and months of delay, which aroused the wrath of the local Australian press and the Labor opposition. Meanwhile, outside of radars, the United States has interfered in the negotiations, and torpedoed 'the contract of the century', offering to provide the Australian Navy with eight atomic-powered submarines capable of patrolling at very long distance. " (The French review Marianne, Submarine contract broken: "The United States has opened Pandora's box", 9/16/2021)) 

From the Franco-European point of view taken up by the media, it seems that the United States has excluded the 'EU of Aukus only to "steal" the contract from the submarines. This is not the case. The choice of armaments generates operational links, allows the exchange and joint training of crews and facilitates the coordination and complementarity of operations. Choosing armaments means choosing allies on the battlefield, selling them, promoting future joint operations. 

From an Australian perspective, it is understandable why a turnkey American submarine has become more valuable than a European technology shipyard on national soil. War in Asia seems closer and closer, a matter of years, not decades. And the United States is a vector, with a capacity of projection of troops and ships much greater than that of a distant and less well-equipped Europe. 

The evolution of American alignments against China in the Pacific and the origin of Aukus The "surprise" of Borrell and the European Commission is not very convincing either. For the United States, Aukus means giving up - reluctantly - having the main Asian states as the main military and commercial vehicle in their confrontation with China. They take a step back and decide to relaunch their "hard core" of alliances with other English-speaking countries where their influence has always been predominant, in order to advance in their encirclement of China. 

The specific objectives of the Aukus, namely "to deepen cooperation in areas such as cybernetics, artificial intelligence (AI) or quantum technology" by promoting a "new security framework" in the Indo-Pacific region, are a development of the “Five Eyes” alliance: the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. This alliance, whose origins date back to the Pacific War, is a military intelligence club that has been operating continuously since the Korean War. 

For a year and a half, the "five eyes" have been proposed as the basis of an anti-Chinese bloc in the Indo-Pacific region and China has seen there the nucleus of an Anglo-Saxon bloc which was already coordinating in the trade war. But the United States, for reasons of economic strategy and political positioning in Asia, did not want the new “Asian NATO” to emerge from an alliance of only Anglo-Saxon countries, as is ultimately the Aukus. This is why its primary objective, both under Trump and under Biden, was to consolidate the QUAD (United States, India, Australia and Japan) as a military alliance and economic trade bloc, and to rely on this core. by incorporating South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.  

But South Korea, engaged in its own rivalry with Japan and having more than notable investments in China, did not want to be in the game and categorically refused to be part of an enlarged Quad. India also refused under Trump's presidency. And if the United States was hoping for a change with Biden, it was wrong. The Modi government only agreed to participate in the joint military exercises when it was clear that they would take place under French leadership, which now takes on its full significance. And in April of this year, India reaffirmed its alliance with Russia. 

The United States then considered including Japan in the "five eyes" group. But when the friction between Japan and South Korea nearly blasted the G7, it seems to have become clear to Biden's advisers that there is no relevant subset of Asian countries in which alignment with the United States was stronger than the imperialist quarrels between them. Japan allowed Vietnam to be added - something Washington needed Suga [the Japanese prime minister] for - but subtracted Korea and the Philippines.  

The strategy of creating an imperialist bloc in Asia and the Indo-Pacific region was redefined at the White House: it was better to return to the safe ground of the "five eyes" - from which the Aukus originated - and regroup the rest of the countries. which confront China on the basis of bilateral military agreements such as the one recently concluded with Indonesia. 

It is so important to ensure the “governance” of the alliance that the United States has left Canada outside the Aukus - with which trade disputes have not abated since Biden's arrival - as well as New Zealand and its Prime Minister who was too little hawkish in Washington's eyes. 

Aukus: a coup by the USA to force the constitution of an imperialist bloc in the southern hemisphere 

Yet it is not as if Great Britain, the third leg of the Aukus, is unconditionally in the alliance no more. The Afghan experience, in which the United States left the British military in a difficult situation by withdrawing without coordination or consultation, is all too recent. And in yesterday's parliamentary debate, Theresa May, in no way suspicious of pacifism, asked Johnson if membership in Aukus would not drag Britain into a war for Taiwan in the short term.

The question is far from being exaggerated. For months, Washington has concentrated pressure and weaponry on the Taiwan Strait. Beijing, especially since the last edition of the "two sessions" in question its belonging to China. The two camps have been continuously mobilized for months and dream without shame or prudence of the consequences of a defeat of the other. 

Over the past four years, we have seen the trend of bloc formation strengthen with each stroke of the crisis. Aukus represents, at the very least, a further step. There was no change to be expected from the Biden presidency in this regard. And indeed, what is now becoming clear is that persevering on the path of war is the main strategic commonality of the various factions of the American ruling class. 

Within the American ruling class, pre-war emergencies serve to mend the tear that the Trump administration has represented. The internal logic of this situation is fueling the acceleration of militarism and imperialist tensions with China.  

“The Biden administration justifies US policy in terms of infrastructure, economy and even public services by the need to strengthen the country to better compete with China. American foreign policy is increasingly organized as an attempt to counter the rising great power. President Joe Biden keeps repeating that he had to withdraw from Afghanistan because China liked the United States to get bogged down in it. Take some of the most important issues rocking Washington, the Covid-19 pandemic and the fight against climate change, and China is at the center of those. (…) The idea that [China] poses a threat is the only point on which Republicans and Democrats, supporters of Trump and Biden can agree. Biden has placed the promotion of democracy at the center of his presidency, there is no need to guess why ... ” (CNN1). 

This process has its immediate translation in the whole of the American imperialist policy and in particular in the relations with its “historical allies”, not only in Europe but also in the rest of the world. When the French foreign minister called the formation of Aukus and the breach of the naval contract "unilateral, brutal and unpredictable" (France Info), the implicit reference to Kabul sent a message to the other European states which Paris will present to again the idea of ​​a European army in 2022: “the EU cannot count on the United States to defend its interests if it does not have a position allowing it to defend itself. 

"Butwhen he found that the behavior of the US towards Europe was"very similar to Mr.Trump, "hestressed that Washington does not simply continue the" me or China ”, but leaves less and less room for an imperialist policy independent of the European states. In the words of CNN: “The leaders of the European Union have been more cautious [of China than the United States], apparently seeking a middle path between two great powers. The past few days show that making such a decision has consequences. 

"TheFrench capital has faced the obvious: the policy of" with me or against me "applies already in Asia. Aukus is actually a hit on the table on the most sensitive stage for Washington in its rivalry to China. Its aim is to precipitate by force the formation of an imperialist bloc in the Pacific and to force all the states which want to play in the region to come out for or against the USA. 

And this is only the first step. In the rest of the world, even for countries on the fringes of the Indo-Pacific conflict, Aukus is likely to become the nucleus of an “alternative” to China in an option that will increasingly be “all or nothing”. The tension in the Falklands and the Sickle Sea has been a dress rehearsal - so far inconclusive - of what the Aukus might entail in the southern cone of South America and in Antarctica. But sooner or later we'll see the alliance move across the southern hemisphere.  

Emancipation (https://es.communia.blog/aukus/), September 17, 2021,

1. CNN,

16/9/21, https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/17/politics/biden-china-france-aukus-analysis/index.html

 IGCL

OUR POSITIONS

 • Since World War 1, capitalism has been a decadent social system which has nothing to offer the working class and humanity as a whole except cycles of crises, wars and reconstructions. Its irreversible historical decay poses the single alternative for humanity : socialism or barbarism. 

• The Paris Commune of 1871 was the first attempt by the proletariat to carry out this revolution, in a period when the conditions for it were not yet ripe. Once these conditions had been provided by the onset of capitalist decadence, the October revolution of 1917 in Russia was the first step towards an authentic world communist revolution in an international revolutionary wave which put an end to the imperialist war and went on for several years after that. The failure of this revolutionary wave, particularly in Germany in 1919-23, condemned the revolution in Russia to isolation and to a rapid degeneration. Stalinism was not the product of the Russian revolution, but its gravedigger.

 • The statified regimes which arose in the USSR, eastern Europe, China, Cuba, etc., and were called 'socialist' or 'communist' were just a particularly brutal form of the universal tendency towards state capitalism, itself a major characteristic of the period of decadence. 

• Since the beginning of the 20th century, all wars are imperialist wars, part of the deadly struggle between states large and small to conquer or retain a place in the international arena. These wars bring nothing to humanity but death and destruction on an ever-increasing scale. The working class can only respond to them through its international solidarity and by struggling against the bourgeoisie in all countries. 

• All the nationalist ideologies -'national independence', 'the right of nations to self-determination', etc.- whatever their pretext, ethnic, historical or religious, are a real poison for the workers. By calling on them to take the side of one or another faction of the bourgeoisie, they divide workers and lead them to massacre each other in the interests and wars of their exploiters. 

• In decadent capitalism, parliament and elections are nothing but a masquerade. Any call to participate in the parliamentary circus can only reinforce the lie that presents these elections as a real choice for the exploited. 'Democracy', a particularly hypocritical form of the domination of the bourgeoisie, does not differ at root from other forms of capitalist dictatorship, such as Stalinism and fascism. 

• All factions of the bourgeoisie are equally reactionary. All the so-called 'workers', 'Socialist', and 'Communist' parties (now ex-'Communists'), the leftist organizations (Trotskyists, Maoists, anarchists) constitute the left of capitalism's political apparatus. All the tactics of 'popular fronts', 'anti-fascist fronts' and 'united fronts', which mix the interests of the proletariat with those of a faction of the bourgeoisie, serve only to smother and derail the struggle of the proletariat. 

• With the decadence of capitalism, the unions everywhere have been transformed into organs of capitalist order within the proletariat. The various forms of union organization, whether 'official' or 'rank and file', serve only to discipline the working class and sabotage its struggles. 

• In order to advance its combat, the working class has to unify its struggles, taking charge of their extension and organization through sovereign general assemblies and committees of delegates elected and revocable at any time by these assemblies. 

• Terrorism is in no way a method of struggle for the working class. The expression of social strata with no historic future and of the decomposition of the petty bourgeoisie, when it's not the direct expression of the permanent war between capitalist states, terrorism has always been a fertile soil for manipulation by the bourgeoisie. Advocating secret action by small minorities, it is in complete opposition to class violence, which derives from conscious and organized mass action by the proletariat. 

• The working class is the only class which can carry out the communist revolution. Its revolutionary struggle will inevitably lead the working class towards a confrontation with the capitalist state. In order to destroy capitalism, the working class will have to overthrow all existing states and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat on a world scale: the international power of the workers' councils, regrouping the entire proletariat. 

• The communist transformation of society by the workers' councils does not mean 'self-management' or the nationalization of the economy. Communism requires the conscious abolition by the working class of capitalist social relations: wage labour, commodity production, national frontiers. It means the creation of a world community in which all activity is oriented towards the full satisfaction of human needs.

 • The revolutionary political organization constitutes the vanguard of the working class and is an active factor in the generalization of class consciousness within the proletariat. Its role is neither to 'organize the working class' nor to 'take power' in its name, but to participate actively in the movement towards the unification of struggles, towards workers taking control of them for themselves, and at the same time to draw out the revolutionary political goals of the proletariat's combat. 

OUR ACTIVITY 

• Political and theoretical clarification of the goals and methods of the proletarian struggle, of its historic and its immediate conditions. 

• Organized intervention, united and centralized on an international scale, in order to contribute to the process which leads to the revolutionary action of the proletariat. 

• The regroupment of revolutionaries with the aim of constituting a real world communist party, which is indispensable to the working class for the overthrow of capitalism and the creation of a communist society.

 OUR ORIGINS 

• The positions and activity of revolutionary organizations are the product of the past experiences of the working class and of the lessons that its political organizations have drawn throughout its history. The IGCL thus traces its origins to the successive contributions of the Communist League of Marx and Engels (1847-52), the three Internationals (the International Workingmen's Association, 1864-72, the Socialist International, 1884-1914, the Communist International, 1919-28), the left fractions which detached themselves from the degenerating Third International in the years 1920-30, in particular the German, Dutch and Italian Lefts, and the groups of the Communist Left which had specially developed in the 1970s and 1980s and which were stemming from these fractions.